If this is your first visit, be sure to
check out the FAQ by clicking the
link above. You may have to register
before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages,
select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.

sipping our first mead

Yesterday we bottled our first batch of mead. My wife asked me to sniff the top of the carboy in fear that it might be vinegar. Ah, the thrill of victory. It is as good as any mead we purchased and it has a kick. Grinning ear to ear.
I am hopeful that we will harvest enough honey this fall to do it again.

Re: sipping our first mead

I only have a few months to go but it will be tough. I think the question of what am I going to do with all this honey has gone to, do we have enough for more mead? Just pulling the cap off the bottle brings a smile to my face. Such a wonderful aroma. I wasn't expecting to extract much this year but now I am hopeful.

We used 5 quarts of our fall honey and tap water (we have a carbon Aqua filter)
Yeast - Lalvin D-47 one packet but screw up and pitched the yeast into hot must and had to pitch again a couple of days later. Fermentation is very slow but could have been because of our goof.

I have to say if you can't make mead you should re-evaluate keeping bees. But I attribute our success to our chemical free hives. So good luck.

We got the instructions on line for basic mead if you can't find it I can try and look it up.

Re: sipping our first mead

Ja, I don't know about that. I know some great barley or hop farmers who couldn't make a beer to save their lives. But I think that might have been Acebird's point: mead is beautifully simple as long as the basic tenets are followed (cleanliness, sanitation, good ingredients, healthy yeast).

Re: sipping our first mead

Originally Posted by BeeCurious

You might prefer cyser. It is apple juice and honey.

Our apple tree just dropped most of its apples because of the drought we are having. We have put in more apple trees and added plum, peach and cherry trees this year. It might be a start for some more mead experimentation.